Illinois family creates 45-foot-tall icicle in front yard

ST. ELMO, Ill. (AP) - An Illinois family has created a 45-foot-tall icicle in their front yard.

Katherine Ragel of St. Elmo in in south-central Illinois' Fayette County says she's worried there might be an accident because passing traffic sometimes will "stop in the middle of the road."

Ragel's son, Garrick Moreland, made the icicle. The tree trimmer climbed into one of Ragel's trees with a hose and turned on the water when temperatures dropped a few weeks ago. The icicle kept growing.

The Effingham Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/1yhsaZF ) the idea originally came from Ragel's late husband, Alan Ragel, who liked to build smaller icicles along the driveway.

St. Elmo is about 20 miles southwest of Effingham on Interstate 70.

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Information from: Effingham Daily News, http://www.effinghamdailynews.com